Imperialist Doublethink

Excellent catch, Henry. Thank you.

“Nice country you’ve got there, Correa — shame if anything happened to it.”

Stephen, it appears to be. But would you expect any different? Assange hinself appears a dodgy enough character, from what I can tell. Doesn’t excuse the Washington Post editorial though

http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-ecuador

Have I got that right?

I will relate the other side of the story and you decide.

Correa was attacked (he was in a crowd out somewhere) by a group of cops. He was badly hurt and taken to a nearby hospital. The cops followed him inside and eventually he was rescued by armed forces.

An Ecuadorian newspaper, registered in Cayman Islands, relayed this bit of news as Correa ordering the armed forces to shoot at the crowd, that he deserved what he got, the police was acting in self-defense and defending innocent civilians.

All Latin American countries denounced the coup and the newspaper was never able to prove its accusation. After that, Correa sued the newspaper, judges came and went, the newspaper was fined, it would not pay, the owners were jailed, great outcry in the US media, particularly the Washington Post, and Correa pardoned them. All very messy.

The part about “every major human rights group and international press freedom monitor” condemning Correa might refer to Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which is in Washington. It slammed Correa for persecuting the newspaper’s owners. This commission passes judgment on all Latin American countries while the US itself is not a signatory, which is quite imperialist if you ask me.

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Whatever the rights and wrongs of that particular situation, about which I know nothing, criticising the Inter-American Human Rights Commission as a tool of the US is nonsense. The Inter-American “passes judgement” on all Latin American countries because those Latin American countries are party to the Inter-American Human Rights Convention, giving them the right to report on human rights issues. In judgement terms, it is the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that does the actual judgement passing.

Concerning possible trade sanctions, Ecuador exports mostly oil to the US. The US refines it and exports value-added products – gasoline, plastics – back to Ecuador and others, which is a good deal. China and Brazil would probably be happy to take over the US’s role in the business.

Other than that, Ecuador export flowers, fruits, and vegetables as part of a program to get peasants out of the drug business. Who knows what the consequences of abruptly suspending that would be in the US. In Ecuador, it is clear that some very poor people would suffer.

“Whatever the rights and wrongs of that particular situation, about which I know nothing, criticising the Inter-American Human Rights Commission as a tool of the US is nonsense. The Inter-American “passes judgement” on all Latin American countries because those Latin American countries are party to the Inter-American Human Rights Convention, giving them the right to report on human rights issues. In judgement terms, it is the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that does the actual judgement passing.”

Okay, but the US being out and the Latin American countries being in a human rights regime based in DC is not, perhaps, random. They are pressured to be in by the US and they cannot pressure the US in return to participate. So it’s quite possible to see the Inter-American etc as a US foreign policy instrument enabling asymmetric interventions in Latin America, despite what you say above.

Isn’t it strange that the US is getting so involved in a Swedish rape case? This is supposedly about a common-law crime, not a political matter, and the alleged crime did not take place on US soil and is therefore not under US jurisdiction. Why would the US retaliate in any way? Of course, we all know why, yet we are expected to treat this as an ordinary criminal case. The fact that the Assange prosecution is political (if the US is sabre-rattling, I don’t think that can be disputed. And if it rises to threatening trade relations, is there even precedent for such a thing? Granted, this is officially the WP, not the USG, but I don’t think the WP would be pushing this kind of loose talk if it did not have reason to believe the government agreed with it) does not prove Assange is innocent, but it does prove that the wheels of justice are not turning properly, and parties with no legitimate involvement are very strongly involved. In that situation, we should not be expected to treat it as a simple rape case.

but the US being out and the Latin American countries being in a human rights regime based in DC is not, perhaps, random. They are pressured to be in by the US and they cannot pressure the US in return to participate. So it’s quite possible to see the Inter-American etc as a US foreign policy instrument enabling asymmetric interventions in Latin America, despite what you say above.

Do you have any evidence for this, Otto? It doesn’t jibe at all with what the lawyers I know who work with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and court say or think.

As for the trade preferences, the US Generalized System of Preferences has pretty much always been conditional on all sorts of things. (This was long true of the EU system of preferences, too, though they have changed somewhat, from what I understand.) I don’t think this is a good system. I’d rather that lower or no tariffs be the rule for developing and less developed countries. But it’s not as if conditionality is new here. It’s also worth noting that the result of losing GSP is getting the normal WTO negotiated tariffs- that is, getting the same rate as most countries, just not a special rate.

It’s Castro, Castro, Chavez. Correa can’t break past #4 by doing anything remotely involving Assange; he’s got to outlive these guys if he ever wants to actually reach Latin American Enemy #1.

But even granting the truth of an anti-Correa bias in the Ecuadorian media, campaigning against the media—and in the larger context, campaigning against the continental human right framework—is counter-productive and even dangerous, since it will also be used as a precedent by right-wing governments.

My reading of the Correa’s letter you linked to is different from yours. I do not see it as an attack against the media but against one publisher in particular who ultimately apologized for publicly accusing him of a falsehood. Furthermore, why would you accuse Correa of paranoia as if it were unheard of that an oligarchic media is instrumental in leading a country to war under false pretenses, as in the US, or in overthrowing a left-wing government in Latin America, particularly in the historical context of CIA-backed coups and US military occupations? Why does the right of free speech take precedence over our collective right to self-determination – not being invaded and/or our democratically elected governments overthrown?

Neither is Correa campaigning against human rights. He had the support of countries like Brazil and Peru, and ultimately of the OAS assembly, to reform the Commission. At another level, this is also happening to the OAS as a whole and to global institutions such as the UNSC, WTO, IMF, and World Bank. Latin American countries are demanding that our be voices heard at these institutions and our values and priorities, which are the product of our histories and cultures, be acknowledged.

It would also be nice if our countries, leaders, and aspirations were not ridiculed by the US media, but that would be asking too much.

oh, and gordon@21 (last time I looked):

An ally is not necessarily a friend. Clearly Roosevelt was not a communist and he did not become one because of the strategic alliance. I doubt whether he even laughed at Stalin’s jokes.

Correa has undoubtedly done lots of good things for his country, and much of the international criticism against him is unjustified. But he can be completely out to lunch about other things.

But yanking preferences for Ecuador over the Assange case would be unjustified, imo.
I agree- though I’m not sure if anyone other than some jerk at the Washington Post is actually suggesting it.

I think that it’s uncontroversial that the GSP would be better at promoting growth, and better for the US, too, if it was made unconditional except perhaps based on the level of development of the country. (*) But, they have never actually been used that way, and have been made conditional on all sorts of silly things, and it’s well known that they are conditional, so the claim that something _especially_ imperialistic is being done here seems too strong to me.

(*) Actually, if I were designing them I _might_ make them conditional on the benefiting state reducing tariffs on good from other states that benefit from GSP, as at least in the past these were the most burdensome tariffs that most developing countries faced- ones they placed on each other. I’m far from sure on this, though.

re 18: “Granted, this is officially the WP, not the USG, but I don’t think the WP would be pushing this kind of loose talk if it did not have reason to believe the government agreed with it”

Fred Hiatt et al. at the WaPo editorial board would be thrilled to hear that people think they speak with that kind of authority. They’re just repeating a cute idea they heard from someone at a cocktail reception.

And there’s a certain naivete to the editorial. Assange is already working for Putin; why would he be troubled by Correa?

@Watson Ladd 29:

Thank you, if liberalism means you mustn’t be able to decide who you do and don’t conduct trade with then I’ve been beholden to the wrong ideology.

I understand that Assange is something of a pet cat on the left and I agree altering our trade relations with a country simply because of him would be foolish but jeez almighty if Correa is actively working to strain relations with us then I’d think that he’d be the one responsible for the welfare of his own 400,000 people.

It seems patronizing to insist that despite denunciations of the United States we should still trade with Ecuador because the citizens of Ecuador really need our help. Obviously Correa has his own plans.

What does “empire” mean? A clarification is necessary; “asymmetrical power relationship” is insufficient for my tastes.

I’m not buying the “empire” definition, either, since the US would just be withholding privileges in its own territory, not intervening in Ecuador’s. All countries try to pressure other countries to adopt certain policies, and trade is just one common arena for that.

In Assange’s case, he should really be more worried. Ecuador does have an extradition treaty with the US, so if they ever decided it was too costly to keep him . . .

What does “empire” mean?

It means the current world order, Pax Americana or American hegemony in English, “imperio” in Spanish and its equivalent in most other languages.

It refers to the military dominance of the US and its allies in Europe over many regions of the planet and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It refers to New York and London as financial centers with the support of institutions such as the IMF, WTO, and the World Bank and agreements from Bretton Woods to Basel III. Its ideology is neoliberalism. Its reserve currency is the US dollar. It has enabled capital to flow from poor countries to rich and the Gini coefficient of most countries and the world as a whole to rise. It means financial meltdowns in Latin America, Asia, and Russia and more recently Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, and Spain.

It is coming to an end.

@Lupita

It has enabled capital to flow from poor countries to rich

More like the reverse, particularly considering China’s imports of FDI. Even then, the poor countries have never really been significant sources of trade or revenue for the rich countries outside of China and a handful of other countries – most trade and capital from rich countries flows into other rich countries.

There’s something seriously wrong with people who think shutting down a coup-supporting organization (no matter what ostensible purpose it may have served) is ‘anti-free speech’.

‘Free Speech’ doesn’t generally cover treason. And yes, spreading propaganda to assist in the institution of a fascist dictatorship is certainly treason.

The rape case against Assange is sort of like the tax evasion case against Al Capone.

Please note that this does make Assange innocent of the charge of rape, just as Al Capone was not, in fact, innocent of tax evasion.

All they need is an excuse to get Assnage into the country for a few hours, long enough for him to mysteriously disappear/ a lone patriot to shake his hand/ get married in a no fly zone.

And it would be difficult for Assange to disappear into a plane in the dead of night never to be seen again (a) because Sweden has requested his extradition, and (b) everyone would notice. He’s not some nameless, faceless Arab after all – he’s a white British man who everyone has heard of.

Chalmers Johnson had this to say about the American Empire:

http://www.alternet.org/story/47998/

Please note that this does make Assange innocent of the charge of rape

Argh! I meant does not make Assange innocent.

Not to be overly cynical, but I’m guessing there’s a good chance the WP editors wanted to say something about Correa but know there’s nothing about the word “Ecuador” that will make most readers look twice (myself included), so they spiced the piece up by linking him to a celebrity. But there’d be nothing to talk about.

#46 ‘Assange is not some nameless, faceless Arab after all – he’s a white British man who everyone has heard of.’

Assange is Australian; but — point taken.

I’m glad we have some people who are on the case about the oppression in Ecuador. It is monstrous. The United States should be urged by the Post, I hope, to continue to have special relations only with oil exporting democracies, like Saudi Arabia, who understand all about freedom of the press.

makes allegations of current-day imperialism in Oregon or Iowa or Michigan rather more problematic.

Interesting question. If the British had say done an total extermination in Kenya in the 19th so there was nothing left in Kenya today but white British and no one alive outside who could make a claim, who could gainsay that Kenya was Britain? Problematic indeed.

Nations like Japan knew what America was and what we had done by the 2nd half of the 19th. They understood us better than we do ourselves. And then came the Philippines.
Would the Japanese have been exterminated? Well, thank Buddha there was no Sutter’s mill.

@55: Practically every ethnic group’s rights to the land they are on now is founded on some more ancient Volkerwanderung, often accompanied by invasions, genocide (attempted or completed), and/or a trail of tears. Anglo-Saxons in England are only one of the best understood examples (that is, we know approximately who arrived when and where they came from). On this point, at least, there really is no reason to single out the US.

Except, Chris, that the US is in the here and now, and so are we. I can’t do anything about the past. In the present, I can point out that the uses we make of the past are mostly defenses of a future we hope to create now, and that therefore not all of those uses are equally honorable. For example, Newt Gingrich, for example, considers himself a historian. I doubt that all those heaps of dead from the past would approve of the uses to which he, in particular, has put them.

So on the one hand, the Washington Post believes that the notion that the US has an ‘empire’ is self-evidently ridiculous.

The quotes are used both to indicate that the word “empire” is being used in a non-standard or non-ordinary fashion, and to avoid taking any position on the accuracy of the term.

On the other hand, it suggests that if Ecuador is impertinent enough to host an individual whom the US doesn’t like (but would have a hard time pressing charges against), it should and will express its displeasure by crippling Ecuador’s economy and threatening the livelihood of 400,000 of its citizens.

Well… that seems like an awfully tendentious summary of the editorial.

I read it as stating that if Correa decides to adopt a resolutely anti-American stance (not merely “hosting” Assange), the US need not continue to open its own market to Correa.

Reading such a measure – by itself – as an indication of empire is a stretch, imho. By such a reading, country A might maintain no military or intelligence capabilities of any sort abroad, maintain no proxies abroad, fund no organizations of influence abroad, and have a foreign policy the sole lever of which is the granting of access to country A’s domestic markets – and yet somehow constitute an empire. And somehow country A’s decision not to allow country B to ship goods to country A is then translated into an imperialist act.

Most Americans would reject this description of imperialism because they view such an act as an essential part of national self-determination: the nation decides who gets to access its markets, and who does not – no one else.

So, even if you assumed that the Post’s use of scare quotes indicated skepticism about the term, you’re not seeing doublethink. You’re seeing a conventional understanding of empire and imperialism – an understanding different from your own perhaps, but not an understanding that renders the Post editorial self-contradictory, which is what is required for something to really be doublethink.

Please note that this does [not] make Assange innocent of the charge of rape

Assange hasn’t been formally charged with anything. There was an Interpol warrant for his arrest because Sweden wanted to question him one more time, and for some reason refused to do this in England even though that would have been possible and reasonable (see point 16).

Assange hasn’t been formally charged with anything.

That still does mean he didn’t rape someone. Geez.

Katherine @ 46:
I wasn’t speaking to the merits of Assange’s rape case. Not my purview as I’m not a judge, I was just making an analogy.

And I don’t think he’d really be smacked with a drone, just that his plane might have some unforeseen technical problems that extend his layover long enough for some men in suits to ask him a few uncomfortable questions in a room with no windows.

Andrew F.: Do you really believe this?

Most Americans would reject this description of imperialism because they view such an act as an essential part of national self-determination: the nation decides who gets to access its markets, and who does not – no one else.

My only knowledge about the US comes from probably unreliable sources, but I was rather under the impression that the “most Americans” who usually show up in this sort of sentence would be outraged if the national government abrogated to itself the choice of legitimate seller of a good.

The idea that Assange should be extradited from Sweden to USA is IMHO absurd. Emma brought up an earlier case with two Egyptians who was handed over to CIA in a most illegal fashion, but the political fallout of that one was pretty bad. The political price for helping USA in a case with such a well known person is simply too high since the only charges USA could bring would be purely political.

The rape case itself is pretty strange, but I think it has more to do with an over ambitious and unflexible prosecutor than any conspiracy to help USA. Once the charge of rape was brought up Assange has to be heard, and I’m not sure there is any rule saying this can be done in England. It would be amusing if Assange after all this time is caught, flown over to Sweden, interrogated and the charges are then dropped.

Shorter: “if Correa wants US imperialism, we’ll give him US imperialism”.

Even shorter: “I’ll give you something to cry about”.

Arguably the destruction of the second temple and Assyrian and Babylonian policies towards those they conquered constituted genocide. Population transfers were carried out with the aim of ensuring that the new regions would be populated by Assyrians. The Romans of course exiled the Jews, who remained in exile for 2,000 more years. Egyptian policy in Nubia was one of Egyptianization.

I don’t think the U.S. wants to try Assange, at least, they should be smarter. Maybe they aren’t at this point.

They would just like to see him convicted in Sweden and have that taint.

Nine @74, Eh, look they’re all good interpretations. The Post is derisive about the idea of “the emptire” and so indicates with use of scare quotes; the Post is using quotes to indicate that it’s Correa’s desription for the US, not the Post’s, (e.g. “so, this “empire” as you call it, you think…); the Post is noting that the word “empire” used here is being used in a somewhat special sense, and uses quotes to alter reads to that fact. They all work.

But more interesting than what the WP “really thought” about the “empire” term, is how in Henry’s view this equates to doublespeak.

Sidenote: John Quiggin, sometimes I agree on these threads, sometimes I disagree, but I try to focus on the subject, to engage others respectfully, and to enjoy – even learn – from the comments and suggestions. That I happen to disagree with Henry in this case – I’ve agreed with him in other cases – doesn’t make me a troll. If you come across something that you believe constitutes trolling, let me know. If you have something specific to say about a comment of mine that I can use, I welcome it. But if you’re merely going to insult (as you have numerously now), then do us all a favor and stop adding to the clutter with mis-applied “DNFTT.” Thanks.

@lupita

Capital flows from poor to rich countries. The evidence is everywhere. Global capital flows are actually measured: the net flows from poor countries to rich were $557 billion in 2010; they peaked at $881 billion in 2007. The IMF, WB, Fed, and US economists have papers with titles such as “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich Countries to Poor?” and “The River Flows Upstream”. They use words such as “paradox”, “conundrum”, and “puzzle”. I use imperialism.

Does that include the billions China drives back into US treasury bonds to prevent their currency from inflating in value?

@Data Tutashkia

Capital flows to poor countries, cheap labor is added there, goods flow back to rich countries. Just another way to exploit. Perceived, currently, as all but noble, or, at the very least, unobjectionable.

The poor countries get wage income, investment, and usually technology that leaks out. China started out as a final assembly place for foreign corporations, and moved on from there.

@JOP A quick Google search reveals many references to Russian neo-imperialism, trans-imperialism and so on, as well as quite a few for imperialism tout court
http://www.economist.com/node/21540988
French influence in West Africa is more commonly described as neo-colonial or post-colonial.

rici, have you cast your eye over what’s happening in the media in Britain at the moment? There are a lot of countries that could benefit by adopting a few measures to curtail the “freedom” of the press, since this freedom is clearly being deployed in the interests of plutocracy and (in Murdoch’s case) war and mass murder.

I think it would be refreshing indeed if the Sun and its ilk were slapped with a 40 million dollar fine every time they told lies about a politician they didn’t like (or an asylum seeker, or a gay family, or…) I think it would be nice if Gina Rinehart were legally prevented from sacking editors whose opinion she disagrees with. Maybe it would be a good idea if some liberal “democracies” adopted a few of Correa’s ideas about a slightly more robust form of media regulation.

“The charges are that he had “condomless” sex with two women, according to wikipedia.”

Come on. Having sex with someone against their consent is rape. It doesn’t matter it they failed to give consent because God told them to wait for marriage, because you aren’t their partner, because they ate something funny last night, or because they don’t want to have sex without a condom. The allegation is that she told Assange she wouldn’t have sex without a condom, and then he waited until she was asleep before penetrating her without a condom.

That would be rape in the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and as it happens, Sweden.

That, dear boy, is the point of an investigation, which Assange has being fleeing. You can’t quote “facts” from Wikipedia, in order to exonerate Assange, and then complain when someone presents a different version of those facts.

Having sex with someone against their consent is rape.

Perhaps noting how the definition of rape has evolved since women began to have a say in the matter would help with a definition of imperialism.

The notion that an there has to be a military invasion (Central American and Caribbean countries are part of the American empire, but not Ecuador) is the equivalent of a women having to sustain visible injuries in order to allege rape.

Justifying invasion or regime change because a government is socialist, islamist, or non-democratic is the equivalent of “asking for it”.

Using concepts such as “sphere of influence”, “backyard”, or the existence of a treaty to argue away imperialism is like using “marriage” or “prior sex” to deny that a rape occurred.

More contemporary notions of rape recognize that it is about power, specifically, the power of men. Rapists may no longer defend themselves by noting that the victim is not beaten up but by referring to her open consent. Consent, which is not the absence of objection, means that there were no instances of duress, blackmail, or abuse of power.

3rd world countries have been demanding representation in global institutions such as the UNSC and the IMF, to no avail, while being victims of currency attacks, having to pay Western corporations for gathering rainwater, and being prohibited from using anything other than Monsanto seeds. This is rape.

I think to lupita’s analysis, though, we have to add the “Capone – tax evasion” charge, which seems to imply that tax evasion isn’t a real crime, and even if it is the government uses charges of tax evasion exclusively to snag political opponents, and even if they charge people with tax evasion fairly evenly that’s only ordinary people, not rich and powerful people like Al Capone who ordinarily don’t face criminal charges of any kind which is as it should be. Which is a little Randish and it’s not too hard to see how it would apply in the analogy to rape.

Paranoid or not, Correa is correct that Ecuador, like everyone else, is subject to influence by others. I think for this to be US empire, solely, in the strict sense, either the IMF would have to be taking orders from the US government, or the US would have to be some kind of sole designated enforcer for the IMF, neither of which to my knowledge is the case. Is it entirely reasonable for him to complain about US policies towards him? Sure. Is it reasonable to complain that people only care about freedom of the press because of “US empire”? I doubt it.

89:Arguing that the retention of Iowa and Oregon et cetera by the United States now is the action of an empire

Well,, I would argue that, but I would argue much more. Just one a day, mods, promise.

Menzie Chinn had a thread the other day about Asian-Americans in which a commenter said this:

“It is less of a problem here; you can quite easily become an American but you can never, ever become Japanese or French or Romanian because you aren’t ethnically one of them. ”

Well, yes, but when one “becomes an American” what does it mean? Who are you, what are you? I contend you are not an “American” in the way a Japanese is “Japanese” in other words tied contingently amd irremediably to a place, culture, history, tradition. I myself have lived in 5 states with wildly different traditions.. Since even our Constitution is changeable it is barely about being attached to universal values and ideas.

My contention is that to become an American is to become deracinated in principle, capable of living anywhere, including your home person over there, so extremely rootless as to devalue and be contemptuous of other’s “rootedness” or sense of place or past. This is not and can never be a true cosmopolitanism, in accepting others traditions, we despise all traditions and aggressively attack them in the name of “freedom”, economic, political, individual.

We are the country of rationalistic nihilism, and imperialistic, culturally destructive, and genocidal not simply by history or accident but in our deepest natures. And evangelical about it.

“Um, Sebastian, how, exactly, do you know for certain what what was said and what transpired during these private, consensual encounters?”

I don’t know anything for certain. I don’t live in Sweden and have never met any of the parties involved. I related what the allegations were. The allegations, if true, would be rape, and trivializing it as “sex without a condom” is crappy.

Perhaps those who choose to call it ‘sex without a condom’ don’t want to trivialize “rape”.
And it’s the same story, perhaps, with “bullying” vs. “imperialism”.

I think for this to be US empire, solely, in the strict sense, either the IMF would have to be taking orders from the US government, or the US would have to be some kind of sole designated enforcer for the IMF, neither of which to my knowledge is the case.

In designations such “American imperialism / hegemony / century” or “Pax Americana”, the “American” part does not mean that in the current world order other nations are not buttressing the US’ role or that they do not get to do their own raping on the side. By “other nations” I mean the UK and other European nations; Japan; and Canada and Australia to a lesser degree. The “American” part means that the US is the core of the core, not that it acts alone.

Anderson wrote on 06.22.12 at 6:56 pm:

“Nice country you’ve got there, Correa—shame if anything happened to it.”

The old “protection” racket, huh?

There is, of course, a major difference between the Roman Empire and the United States. The Romans, with all their faults, were at least honest enough to call themselves an empire when the republic went away.

Rape is an inflammatory word. I was merely seeking to qualify what actually happened. Neither woman disputed that the relationship was consensual, by the way. I don’t know if this rises to the level of date rape. Both were afraid of contracting HIV or some other disease. One of the women appears to have pursued Mr. Assange. She may have been the one that dropped the allegations.

If Mr. Assange had been a gentleman he would have taken an HIV test and put their minds at rest. It would have spared him a lot of grief. Of course, he still can. But he seems to be a free spirit — and/or not entirely rational.

No need for the link, your logic is incontestable. I’m convinced anyway

A question to which I don’t have a fully satisfactory answer. Why is Assange required to be physically present in Sweden in order for the case against him to proceed, at least to the stage of determining whether to lay charges?

Sebastian H (at 100): “…The allegations, if true, would be rape…”

Why the Dickens was the lady in question in bed with Assange? Is it really possible to have sex with somebody without waking them up? If the lady was awake, why didn’t she object?

I think my idea of rape is a good deal more robust than anything that might have transpired between Assange and the Swedish ladies. The whole thing looks like a frame-up to me.

Slightly of topic, but the conversation between lupita, rici and dictateursanguinaire really is interesting. If you pay any sort of attention to the reaction to Morsi’s victory today, or the general support for the Syrian opposition the past year, it’s obvious nothing has changed among academic analysts in the US.
I’m much closer to rici’s perspective but the US foreign policy establishment, or at least their supposedly neutral public face, really are lazy and dumb

I’m not sure why you’re so cryptic Chaz, but if it’s the above I can provide evidence?

In case you missed it.
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/assange_asks_ecuador_for_asylum/
Glen Greenwald:
Ecuador may seem like a random choice but it’s actually quite rational. In 2010, a top official from that country offered Assange residency (though the Ecuadorian President backtracked after controversy ensued). Earlier this month, Assange interviewed that nation’s left-wing President, Rafael Correa, for his television program on RT. Among other things, Correa praised the transparency brought about by WikiLeaks’ release of diplomatic cables as being beneficial for Ecuador (“We have nothing to hide. If anything, the WikiLeaks [releases] have made us stronger”). President Correa also was quite critical of the U.S., explaining the reason he closed the American base in his country this way: “Would you accept a foreign military base in your country? It’s so simple, as I said that at the time, there is no problem in having a U.S. military base in Ecuador but ok, perfect – we can give permission for the intelligence base only if they allow us to install an Ecuadorian base in the United States, a military base. That’s it, no more problem.”
….

Assange’s resolve to avoid extradition to Sweden has nothing to do with a reluctance to face possible sex assault charges there. His concern all along has been that once he’s in Swedish custody, he will far more easily be extradited to the U.S.

In general, small countries are more easily coerced and bullied by the U.S., and Sweden in particular has a demonstrated history of aceeding to U.S. demands when it comes to individuals accused of harming American national security. In December, 2001, Sweden handed over two asylum-seekers to the CIA, which then rendered them to be tortured in Egypt. A ruling from the U.N. Human Rights Committee found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for its role in that rendition (the two individuals later received a substantial settlement from the Swedish government). The fact that Sweden has unusually oppressive pre-trial procedures — allowing for extreme levels of secrecy in its judicial proceedings — only heightens Assange’s concern about what will happen to him vis-a-vis the U.S. if he ends up in Swedish custody.

Can anyone claim that Assange’s fear of ending up in American custody is anything other than supremely reasonable and rational? Just look at what has happened to people — especially foreign nationals — over the last decade who have been accused of harming the national security of the United States.

They’re imprisoned — still — without a whiff of due process, and President Obama just last year signed a new indefinite detention bill into law. Moreover, Assange need merely look at what the U.S. has done to Bradley Manning, accused of leaking documents and other materials to WikiLeaks: the Army Private was held for almost a year in solitary confinement conditions which a formal U.N. investigation found were “cruel, inhuman and degrading,” and he now faces life in prison, charged with a capital offense of aiding Al Qaeda.

“Assange’s resolve to avoid extradition to Sweden has nothing to do with a reluctance to face possible sex assault charges there. His concern all along has been that once he’s in Swedish custody, he will far more easily be extradited to the U.S.”

That is your interpretation, but it seems just as likely that he just doesn’t want to end up in jail in Sweden for a decade or two on rape charges and he happens to be rich enough to try to avoid it. You haven’t offered any particularly good reason why he is more likely to be extradited from Sweden than the UK (where he already is). Furthermore the political backlash over the torture case makes extradition from Sweden *now* less likely, not more likely.

rf@116: I’m much closer to rici’s perspective but the US foreign policy establishment, or at least their supposedly neutral public face, really are lazy and dumb.

I don’t know what work is being done there by that but which leads me to believe that you, like many of the other participants in that “conversation” might believe that because I criticize one of Correa’s policies, I’m necessarily a supporter of the American Empire, if not a copilot of one of the tanks circling the Palacio de Carondelet.

Actually my perspective is that the US foreign policy establishment, the war-glorifying, torture-tolerating, US-exceptionalist foreign policy establishment, the everyone-should-have-the-right-to-think-like-us foreign policy establishment, is at best self-parodying (and dumb and lazy, and, frankly, dangerous). I’d like to think that in thirty or forty years, looking back at the insanity of these decades, someone will write a new version of Mad Men based on the foreign policy fraternity instead of the advertising empire. Of course, the title will need a new pun. I’d suggest Wash Outs.

By the way, @faustusnotes: if we banned all the newspapers which you disagree with, what would you do for fun of a Sunday morning?

“I don’t know what work is being done there by that but which leads me to believe that you, like many of the other participants in that “conversation” might believe….”

There was no work being done by that but! I genuinely found your analysis of Correa, of whom I know nothing, more convincing.
I was just tired when I wrote that, hence the ambiguity

In regard to #46 and some related messages, it might well be the judgement of the American leadership that some sort of grotesque, egregious violation of international law, custom, and opinion, such as Assange’s disappearance or murder in Sweden or anywhere else, might have a salutary effect on those who were tempted to emulate him, such that the benefits (terror) would outweigh the costs (outrage, much vacuous posturing, lingering bad repute), particularly because the acts were so grotesquely violative.

Actually, I believe if the the American leadership was of this mind they would have gotten rid of Assange already; that they would need the extradition business seems very doubtful. However, Assange is betting his hide, and probably wants to take more care than I do writing speculatively. There is certainly a non-trivial chance that extradition to Sweden could be a step towards a very unpleasant fate.

Tom T. 06.23.12 at 4:50 am

” And there’s a certain naivete to the editorial. Assange is already working for Putin; why would he be troubled by Correa?”

Please, at least make it plausible.

Andrew F. @93

I haven’t read the Post editorial beyond the paragraph quoted by Henry in the OP, but I think you’re right (re the Nexon/Wright piece) that “the specialized meaning of ‘imperial’ is one deprived of the kind of normative charge that the ordinary meaning of ‘imperial’ carries.”

But one could still criticize the WaPo paragraph, ISTM, if not perhaps as “doublethink,” then as somewhat blinkered. To put it bluntly: the WaPo editorial board implictly pooh-poohs the notion that the US exercises any extraordinary degree of power in Latin America (this is, arguably, the rhetorical function that the quotation marks around the word “empire” perform) and yet then goes on to mention an exercise of power — removal of trade preferences — intended in this case to punish a country for standing up to the US. So the editorial does seem to show a lack of self-consciousness, at least, about what it says. (Or so one could argue, at any rate.)

Watson Ladd: “There is a deeper principal: extradition should not depend on the differences between legal systems. ”

Actually, it’s not a principle; AFAIK difference in legal systems do restrict extraditions (e.g., Germany trying to extradite somebody from the USA for pro-Nazi speech/writing).

“have you cast your eye over what’s happening in the media in Britain at the moment? There are a lot of countries that could benefit by adopting a few measures to curtail the “freedom” of the press, since this freedom is clearly being deployed in the interests of plutocracy and (in Murdoch’s case) war and mass murder.”

I admire this sort of idealism; nasty cynical men like me think “given that the current government is in bed with Murdoch, I know perfectly well who would be the subject of any additional powers it got to constrain the freedom of the press; Murdoch’s competitors”. This is like saying that the solution to the police being in the pay of the Kray Brothers is to give the police more powers to hold people on sus.

@Andrew F.

Whether the US is an “imperial power” vis-a-vis certain aspects of its relations with foreign entities in the specialized sense the term might be used in international relations theory, and whether the US “is an empire” in the ordinary sense (with normative implications) used by Correa are not identical questions.

I don’t think the”specialized” usage isn’t very specialized. If I refer to a larger corporation as a “corporate empire”, I don’t expect ordinary speakers, American or otherwise, to be puzzled by what I’m saying because the corporation doesn’t claim any sovereign territory–people understand that by “empire” I’m referring to the scale and asymmetry of said power.

What you believe the “normative implications” to be probably depend on whether you’re the one exerting the power or the one the power is exerted over. But there’s no reason that we should select our words to please the former rather than the latter.

The kind of control the US desires here starts to resemble a territorial claim in effect if not in mechanism. The United States doesn’t like this particular Australian citizen because he distributes information the United States would not like to see distributed. It is not just the United States (if acting as WaPo would prefer) is threatening to deny trade privileges, it is that the reason for doing so would be to punish a non-American for speech America doesn’t like.

06.26.12 at 10:13 am

Me: ” Last I heard, the US has tortured white Brits and white Aussies, and there wasn’t a single problem that the higher-ups need lose sleep over.”

Katherine: ” Were they called Julian Assange, and did they have the world’s media following their every move, and an internet full of fan boys willing to leap to their defence at every stage?”

No, and it’s a good point that there’d be a kerfuffle. However, when the white Brits and Aussies were released, and told their stories, the blowback on the US higher ups was, AFAICT, zero. In Julian’s case, this might mean that the higher ups would have to make a (slimy, dishonest) statement (worthy of Stalin’s spokespeople).

In the end, not much of a problem.

Barry: that’s something being a crime in one country that isn’t in another. I should have specified procedural. SCOTUS is also not impotent: a flagrant violation of the current law on Gitmo would bring down an injunction immediately. Courts do not like to be disobeyed.

Watson, then just hold him at Bagram, or any one of God only knows how many mini-gulags the USA maintains.

Or find some excuse to ‘extradite’ him to some torture-contractor country.

@ajay 136

I partly agree with your cynicism, but we can travel a long way if we remember right to reply is different from censorship. What is needed is a stronger defense of the right to reply when inaccurate statements are made, not huge fines like in Correa`s case.

Sure, Fox News would probably implode as a consequence and their competitors would be happy, but they would also suffer from it and it would serve the public very well. All countries are in fault in this regard, but the u.s. seems to be particularly allergic to the idea of right to reply as part of freedom of speech. I think part of the reason is that americans often operate with a rigid dichotomy “no government regulation X totalitarian dictatorship” that forgets, for example, that the judiciary is not the executive, and that no one will lose his freedom of speech if he has to give proportionate space for a reply when his speech is plainly false.

If waking up to find that a man penetrating you, asking him what the fuck he is doing and reminding him that one of the stipulations of sex with you is that he must wear a condom, and finding that he responds with the bone-chilling remark that he’s “wearing [you],” if all that seems consensual to you, Harold, then you’ve no business discussing the topic of rape in adult company. Calling Assange ungentlemanly and a free spirit in the context of these allegations is disgusting. Find yourself a working fainting couch if the mere whiff of a rape accusation is that disturbing and “inflammatory” to you.

Women can also take steps to protect themselves.

Nice to see a website where the comments do not devolve so far down the pit of name calling and political pointmaking…actual thoughtful comments, even admitting one might be wrong oneself.

Refreshing.